Content area
Full Text
Just a few months ago, leaders of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy were bracing for an attack. A Sacramento-based opposition research firm often hired by conservatives had blanketed Los Angeles public agencies with requests for information about LAANE, an influential nonprofit that works with labor, environmentalists, immigrant rights groups and others to shape local public policy. The inquiries were almost certainly aimed at unearthing some embarrassing tidbit that would, at best, make LAANE look bad or, at worst, cast some doubt on its tax-exempt status.
But LAANE's executive director, Madeline Janis, decided not to sit back and wait for the blast. Instead, LAANE submitted its own requests for copies of any information that had been turned over, and collected the material at its offices near downtown. Now, LAANE has collected all the documents and made them publicly available, opening itself to scrutiny rather than letting someone else do it.
The resulting papers fill a file cabinet, which sits in a corner of a small, spare conference room that LAANE employees call
"the...